Tempeh Fugit

Normally, I do not blog real-time. Or even close to real time. Since very few of you see me on a daily basis, it's not really lying if I write about how I baked this-or-that last night when it was really last week.

This blog-delay usually occurs because it takes time to think up the clever little stories and anecdotes in which I couch my recipes. I'm a natural liar and, despite my sometimes pathological shyness, a performer at heart. Just giving my loyal readers & detractors a straightforward recipe goes against everything I stand for, down to the very marrow of my vegan bones.

But sometimes, a recipe comes along that is SO FREAKIN' AMAZING, I must share it, right that night, that very moment; belly-laughs and entertaining stories be damned.

Here is one of those recipes.

Pomegranate-Marinated Tempeh with Armenian Pilaf
veganified from Food+Wine, December 2009

for the glaze
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons PAMA pomegranate liquor
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice

for the pilaf
1 1/2 sticks vegan margarine
3-4 ounces angel hair pasta, broken into 1-2 inch pieces (1 heaping cup)
1/2 cup pine nuts
4 cups long-grain white rice
8 cups vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup loosely packed mint leaves, thinly sliced

1 package of tempeh

(Note that this recipe requires a 4-hour-plus marinade so plan accordingly)

Bring a medium-sized pot of water to boil. Cut the tempeh into 1 - 1 1/2 inch strips. Place the tempeh into the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. Scoop out the tempeh with a slotted spoon and place on a plate lined with paper towels. Pat dry.

While the tempeh is boiling, whisk together all the glaze/marinade ingredients in a medium bowl/glass measuring cup. Coat the bottom of an 8x8 glass Pyrex dish with a small amount of the glaze. Place the tempeh in the dish and pour the remaining glaze over the strips. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours (although overnight or for a couple days is ideal)

When you are ready to bake the tempeh, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare the pilaf.

Melt the butter in a large pot, over medium-high heat. Add the pine nuts and pasta. Cook, stirring often, until both are a deep, golden brown. Add the rice, stirring to coat with the oil-pasta mix. Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to an almost boil, reduce the heat to low, and cover. Cook for 20-25 minute, stirring occasionally, until all the broth is absorbed. Remove from heat, uncover, fluff with a fork or wooden spoon, and cover again. Let sit for 20 minutes. Stir in the mint leaves right before serving.

While the pilaf is sitting, bake the tempeh. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Using tongs, place the marinated tempeh on the foil, bottom-side up. Spoon some of the remaining marinade over the strips and bake for 5 minutes. Turn the tempeh again, spoon the last of the marinade on top, and bake for another 5 minutes. Turn the oven off and crack the door to keep the tempeh hot while the pilaf finishes cooking.

Serve with green beans and a crisp white wine (New Zealand Sauv's would be especially good).


Seriously. Do not delay. Act now. Make this for dinner soon. Time and delicious dinners wait for no vegan.

Accolades

Things that make Megan happy:

1. The sound ice makes when it's dropped in very hot water

2. Bubble wrap

3. That first breath of air after swimming the length of a pool underwater

4. Having people telling her how great her cooking creations are

It seems as though the universe is also a reader of my blog. Obviously it felt bad about wrecking my life last week and decided to be nice to me this week. Ice cubes in my tea? Check. New DVD arriving covered in bubble wrap? Check. Shoulder feeling better enough to swim a little bit? Check. Everyone who tries my snacks loving them? Check and double check.


From my friend Mrs. C (for whom I made Chocolate Macaroons, fruitcake muffins, and an early version of the Almond-Coconut Doilies; layered them with colored wax-paper in fancy gilded and monogrammed boxes; wrapped the whole thing is cellophane and ribbons and called it a Christmas gift):
"Those cookies saved my life on the airplane to California! I had other passengers asking me what smelled so good, but I just couldn't make myself share!"


From Joann (who got Forgotten Cheesecake for Christmas, and for whom I make Not-Peanut Sauce on the regular):
"If there was a way to eat this [Not-Peanut Sauce] for breakfast I would. And anytime you want to make more of those coconut cookies would be ok by me."


From the Doc (who got to be my taste-tester for the doldrum-ending bake-a-thon):
"Huh. This one looks a little brown. And, whoops! This one broke. And I should probably eat one more so you have an even number of cookies..."

From JSK and Jen, my lovely lunch companions in Athens (who were the first recipients of the at-the-time-unnamed raw torte):
"This tastes like magic."


Nothing like **"the stuff that accolades are made of"** to make a girl feel better that's for sure. They were even enough to make me forget that in my excitement to be baking again after my depression, I dropped a spatula into a running blender, necessitating my picking through the torte crust for little plastic pieces.


So here's the recipe for the magic-tasting torte, finally given a name by JSK.


Raw Chocolate-Orange Coma
Note that even though the opiate effects are directly related to the amount of torte you eat, just one bite is magical enough to transport you momentarily. I don't recommend eating this while standing or operating heavy machinery.


3 cups raw cashews, soaked 2-3 hours
3/4 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (about two small oranges)
1 cup raw coconut butter, room temperature or warmer (but not melted)
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 cup dates (about 6-7 whole dates), pitted and soaked 1 hour
2 cups chopped walnuts


Blend the cashews, agave, cocoa, vanilla, and zest in a blender, adding the OJ slowly until very smooth, scraping the sides when needed.
Pulse the dates and chopped walnuts in a food processor (or dry-blade blender) until it forms a sticky-chunky paste.
Press the date-walnut crust into a 9-inch springform pan (I used my mom's heart-shaped one).
Pour the cashew ganache mixture over the crust, spreading evenly with an off-set spatula.
Put in the freezer for a few hours to set, then store in the fridge until ready to serve.

Doldrums

Things the depress Megan:

1. The end of a holiday/party season
2. Being injured/unable to work out because of said injury
3. Not seeing Roomie on a daily basis
4. Monthly lady-bit issues


Any one of these things by itself makes for a pretty crappy week, (loyal readers/detractors following along at home might recognize the first three from previous depression-themed posts) but I'm usually able to maintain the facade of fully-functional adult. Depending on the combination, I can even semi-handle (read: bathe and not cry uncontrollably) two or three at a time. But this past week, the powers that be thought it might be fun to see what I'd do faced with all four. At the same time.

It was like a mental health Chernobyl; the fall-out of which included barely making it out of bed before noon, being unable to fall asleep even with the liberal application of alcohol or Rx drugs, not brushing my hair, having full-out panic attacks at the thought of having to leave the house etc. It also included making most of the people around me miserable by association, and engaging in some un-healthily obsessive behavior. "I say goddamned what a rush!"***

Though at the time it felt as though I would never be happy again, here I am on the other side of my doldrums, and back in the kitchen; attempting to make up for my less-than-pleasant behavior with baked goods. As everybody knows, nothing says, "sorry I can't afford anti-depressants," like baked goods.

The first is a big, crunchy, drop cookie, adapted from a recipe originally in my Christmas-present-to-myself cookbook,"Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar."

The SFSFYDS&GITK Ginger Macadamia Cookies
"Stop Feeling Sorry For Your Damn Self & Get In The Kitchen"

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar, light or dark
1/3 cup unsweetened soy milk (I like Pearl)
1 tablespoon flax seed meal
1 squirt of vanilla bean paste (2-ish teaspoons of the liquid kind, probably)
1 1/2 cups unsalted macadamia nuts (raw if you can get them), chopped coarse
heaping 1/2 cup finely chopped candied ginger

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a few cookie sheets with parchment paper. This recipe makes about 30 coffee-mug-sized cookies.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Using a hand mixer (I didn't feel like whipping out the stand mixer. We're still not talking since the over-mixed bread fracas), beat together the oil, sugars, milk, flax, and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix well. Fold in the nuts and ginger.
For each cookie, scoop a heaping tablespoon of dough onto the tray, leaving about an inch and a half between each glob. The cookies will spread out.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the tops and edges start to brown. Depending on your oven, you might want to bake for 15 minutes, rotate the trays and bake for another 3-5 minutes.
Let the cookies sit on the trays for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to fully cool.




The other cookie I made today is still in the beta-testing stage. Over the holidays, I was attempting to make raw macaroons without the aid of my dehydrator. The chocolate ones turned out ok, they just took 6 hours in the oven at 200. Not exactly time- or energy-efficient. They were also much denser than the traditionally dehydrated cookies. In my search for an airy coconut cookie, I decided to de-raw the almond version of the raw macaroon recipe and create a cookie I could actually bake. I love coconut and macaroons but since the main ingredient is egg whites, it's hard to find a good vegan version. In the end I sacrificed the poofiness of a traditional macaroon for the taste. The following recipe is still being tweaked, but it turns out a pretty delicious cookie. Even the kinda-burned ones are good.

Almond-Coconut Doilies

1 cup raw, unsweetend coconut flakes
1/2 cup sweetened coconut, flakes or shreds
3/4 cup almond meal/flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teasoon sea salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 scant tablespoons coconut oil
1 squirt vanilla paste (maybe a teaspoon and a half of the liquid)

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a few cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, sift together the flours, salt, and powder. Set aside.
With a hand mixer, beat together the coconut oil, vanilla, and maple syrup until very smooth.
Add the flour mix to the wet ingredients and mix well. Fold in all the coconut, using a fork to distribute evenly if the mix gets too thick for the mixer.
For each cookie, roll about half tablespoon of dough between your hands (This dough is really sticky/oily. I like getting messy in the kitchen, but you could probably flour your hands with a little almond meal if you want to keep your hands from getting too doughy). Place the balls on the parchment-lined trays, two rows of three or four balls, depending on the size of your trays. Using your fingers (or the back of a lightly almond-flour-dusted fork) smoosh the dough down into silver-dollar-ish-sized disks.
Bake for 12-15 minutes rotating trays front to back and top to bottom, halfway through. The cookies are done when the edges are deep, golden brown. It is ok if the very middle still looks a little shiny and uncooked. Leave the cookies on the trays for about 5-8 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
If the cookies seem too oily (a problem with early trial runs) place them on paper towels to absorb some of the oil or let them sit on wire racks in an oven set to 150 to dry them out even further.

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Now that I'm feeling better, I have all sorts of KitchenKapers (patent pending) planned. Raw chocolate-orange tarts, completely invented stuffing, fun with celery roots, the next installment of The Veganification!! and much, much more!! So stay tuned!

***(and speaking of The Veganification!!, identify the movie quote in today's post for bonus The Veganification! points, redeemable for merchandise, snacks, and my mostly-depression-free love.)

The Veganification! Begins

Hi and welcome, friends and enemies, to the first of an every-now-and-then sub-series, new to my blog in 2010: The Veganification!


That's right, I said The Veganification!


What is The Veganification! you might be wondering? And why should you care? All good questions. Here are the answers.


Because I had very little "serious" reading to do over Winter Break, and because I am easily distracted by shiny things, I bought and read a good number of glossy-covered, mainstream cooking magazines this winter. Gourmet, Imbibe, Bon Apetit, Martha Stewart's Living, Food+Wine (the latter two my mom gets in the mail) etc. It was so refreshing to read magazines that are written and published by people really truly exited by food and eating, and not trying to push some sort of socio-political agenda. No space wasted talking about which company is poking rabbits and pigs in inappropriate ways, or snarky op-ed pieces about feeling smug at the family Christmas dinner table. Just entertaining articles about trends in food, cooking, spirits, and mixology that focus on taste and presentation rather than morals. I'm far more interested in the bottle vs. can debate in the world of beer than I am in tofu vs. tempeh arguments.

As such, I'm letting my VegNews subscription expire and getting Bon Apetit and Gourmet instead. And (one of) my New Year's Resolutions is to veganify at least one recipe from all of these non-veg magazines a month. And I don't mean just swapping out real dairy for the soy-based stuff. I'm talking about not being daunted by a recipe with great flavor potential just because the main ingredient is meat. Or a good dessert that relies on heavy cream and egg whites. Moroccan Beef Tagine? Poblano Albondingos? Sour-Orange Yucatan Chickens? Shitake-and-Scallion Shrimp Lo-Mein? Apricot & Basil Shortbread? Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks? Chocolate-Nut Tart with Dried Fruit & Clotted Cream?



Bring it on.



So, here is the first veganified meal of 2010. I decided to try this sauce first, as my mother was making veal meatballs (I don't care how vegan I get, I will always love the smell of cooking veal) and this dish originally called for veal shoulders. It's a "notable dark and glossy ragout, the constituents of which**" are as follows:




Not-Veal Pasta Sauce
from Food+Wine, October 2009


1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground fennel (I ground whole seeds)
1 1/2 cups dry red wine (I used Terra d'Oro 2005 Amador Zinfandel)
Two 28-ounce cans Italian whole tomatoes, drained and chopped (see note)
4 cups vegetable puree/stock (see note)
1 1/2 tablespoons minced rosemary


Note: Even if you can't find the whole Italian-style tomatoes (I found mine in the specialty-foods section of Kroger), make the effort to drain and chop whole regular tomatoes. There's too much liquid in the pre-chopped ones and this is a thick sauce. For the vegetable stock, I used my mom's new immersion blender to blend leftover vegetable soup. This resulted in a creamy vegetable puree rather than a traditional stock. Since there isn't any meat in this recipe to absorb extra liquid, I think this helped thicken the sauce. If you use broth, you may want to boil the sauce a little longer to reduce it. Maybe disolve some cornstarch in the broth before adding it to the mix. Or just make some soup and puree it.


In a large soup pot or casserole dish, heat the oil over medium heat.
Add the onions, garlic, fennel, coriander, and cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent.
Add the wine and bring the mixture to a boil. Continue to boil until reduced to 1/3 cup. This should take 5-8 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and cook for another 5 minutes over medium high heat.
Add the veggie puree and rosemary. Return to a boil. Let boil for about ten minutes or until the sauce reduces a little more.
Reduce heat to low, partially cover the pot and simmer for about 20 minutes.


Serve the sauce over a hearty pasta (rigatoni, fettucini, pappardelle) with a big room temp glass of Remirez de Ganuza 2001 Rioja, one of the best reds I've had in a long time and totally worth the price. It's strong enough to hold up against the spice of the sauce, but not in an over-powering way.


And since the non-veggies in the house all went back for seconds, I consider The Veganification! a resounding success.


**Bonus The Veganification! points if you can place the quote. Trade them in for cool The Veganification!! merchandise, homemade veganified snacks and my continued admiration!!**

Things Remembered, Cheesecake Forgotten

I am reminded whenever I visit my cousins, J and The Demon Baby, of a bit of a rant I went on once in a seminar paper. Not about my toddler relations, but about the way digital photography is changing the way we experience/remember things. It's a strange thing that we can immediately view our experiences, assign a value judgement, and (if necessary) completely re-stage the moment. There's hardly such a thing as candid photography anymore. It's all performative. My cousins are a perfect example of this. Their first question after having their picture taken is, "can I see? can I see?" Despite having actually lived whatever it was being photographed only moments before, they want to see it again, and usually re-do it. It's kind of a bummer that J & TDB won't ever know the excitement of picking up developed photographs, laughing at crappy photos, or having something physical to hold while remembering.

However, it's hard to completely dislike the ubiquity of digital cameras when Roomie's new BlackBerry made it much possible to capture a moment like this for posterity.



So is it any wonder - with every little thing being recorded and the necessity to actually remember things waning - that I began soaking nuts for a raw cheesecake on the Solstice, forgot about them; used the nuts to make the components of a raw, vegan cheesecake on Christmas Eve then forgot to put it together until Christmas Day; forgot that I had it in the freezer until New Year's Eve, and then forgot to eat it until just tonight?
Obviously I'm going to have to start videoing everything I do. Desserts are at stake here, kids!! Desserts!!
Picture-Perfect Forgotten Cheesecake(adapted from the December 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times)

for the crust:1 cup raw cashews
1 cup raw walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
for the topping:
2 cups raw cashews, soaked 3+ hours
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 cup apple cider/juice
1/2 cup lemon juice (Note that unless you fresh-squeeze the juices, this dish is "technically" not raw. Check the label to see if the juice is cold-pressed. Either way it'll still be vegan.)
1/4 cup raw coconut oil (plus a bit extra for greasing the dish)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
to make:In a blender or food processor, chop the walnuts, un-soaked cashews, and raisins until the mixture begins to stick together. You might need to scrape the sides once or twice.
Press the mixture into a 9x9 glass baking dish, greased with coconut oil. Chill 30 minutes or overnight.
Drain the soaked cashews and with the rest of the topping ingredients, puree in the blender until smooth. Add up to 3 tablespoons of warm water to facilitate blending. Chill overnight (though, if you don't forget about it, you can spoon it on top of the chilled crust right away).
Once the cheesecake is put together, freeze for at least an hour before serving. Thaw for about 5 minutes, then slice and top with fresh berries, chocolate syrup, or whatever else might strike your fancy.
The best part? Since this is stored in the freezer, there's little chance of spoiling. You can forget about it for a week and still go back for another picture-perfect slice. Also good? It's raw and vegan. So you can "forget" about your New Year's Resolution to cut back on the desserts with little to no guilt.
Just remember to spend a few extra minutes on the treadmil/in the pool/on your yoga mat in the morning.

After all, there are cameras everywhere...

Howl at the Moon

So, apparently, there was a blue moon this past New Year's Eve. According to Wikipedia (how did I know anything about anything before Wikipedia?) a blue moon can be one of several things, but more or less it refers to the 13th moon of a calendar year. Such a thing happens once in a while (once in a blue moon, if you will), since the solar year is eleven days longer than the lunar one.

What does this mean to you and me? Well, I'll tell you what it means, it means that there is one extra night of the year to be plagued by werewolves! Werewolves! Half-man, half-wolf (and half baby-faced angst machine if the movies are any indication). Werewolves are one of my favorite scary-movie monsters. I like the pervasiveness of the figure in almost every cultures' mythology. Shape-shifting, being able to act on animal instincts - I mean, what's not to like?

Though you may have known the fun facts mentioned above, what you may not know, friends & enemies, is that I am in the middle of writing a werewolf-themed novel. True story! Though you'll have to buy the hopefully-to-be-published-someday book to get all the juicy details, the gist of it is: an ex-cop-turned-veterinarian finds a werewolf one night and hijinks ensue. Awesome, right? Totally awesome.

So when I was brainstorming with my mom for ways to decorate the "Strawberry Shortbread Icicle" (a recipe I texted myself from the December 2009 issue of Better Homes & Garden while sitting in the dental hygenist's office), a cookie I was planning to veganize, and she suggested the silver-coated, hard-spun-sugar ballbearings, well, you can imagine my delight. I wasn't just baking. I was making Edible Werewolf Protection or EWP (patent pending)!!

There was just one problem, friends & enemies. Some states (California, for one) have prohibited the sale of these "dragees" citing dangerous levels of toxic metals. Seriously. Read the article and weep for the loss of both an important part of my childhood and a Christmas free of werewolves.

So if you don't happen to have a 20-year-old container of "Wilton's 100% Real Silver Dragees" hiding in your mother's basement, you'll have to find a black market dragee-dealer to run you some in from France (or possibly just order some on them Internets).

Dr. M's Guarantee-Pending, Anti-Werewolf Spearpoints & Throwing Stars

1 cup soy margarine, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup strawberry preserves

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon ground pink peppercorns (see note)

2 2/3 cup white flour

Note: Pink peppercorns are not readily available in grocery stores. I found mine at Williams-Sonoma. They are also available through mail-order specialty-food stores like Dean&Deluca and probably Whole Foods, too. Flavor-wise, they're optional, but visually, pink peppercorns look just awesome. And I'm assuming werewolves don't like pepper anymore than my dog does.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer. Add the preserves, pepper, and vanilla. Beat at a medium-high speed until all combined. Add the flour 1 cup or so at a time until the mix is dough. Chill for about half-hour, or until ready to roll.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thick. Using tart pans of varying sizes (I had a 4-inch one and a 9-inch one) cut out large circles of dough. Transfer to cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Using a pizza cutter (or a fluted ravioli cutter), slice the larger circles into spearpoints. Don't separate. Using a star-shaped cookie cutter, make shurikens and place on seperate parchment-paper-lined cookie sheets. (Note: a single recipe of this dough makes about 4, 4-inch rounds; 1, 9-inch round; and a half-dozen or so throwing-stars). Brush the tops of the spearpoints and shurikens with rice milk and sprinkle with silver sugar crystals (my mom has a fairly stocked pantry as far as fighting mythical beasts go) and press silver dragees into the tips. Bake the cookies/weapons against the dark for 16 - 20 minutes. When the spearpoints come out, re-slice through them with the pizza/ravioli cutter to separate again. Let sit on the trays for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

***

Now, although I can't be positive, I'm pretty sure it was the plate full of spearpoints and throwing stars that allowed me celebrate New Year's Eve without any werewolf interference. I'll be able to say either way with more certainty when I make these again on the next full moon (January 20). Even without a guarantee, please, fans and detractors, feel free to whip up a batch in your neck of the woods and let me know how they work.